Think you have the Coronavirus,perhaps you are just ‘Getting caught Cold’?

Say Aaaah!” said Doctor Jake Smeggons, as he prodded his leaking mercury thermometer into the mouth of his patient.

“ Aaah!” repeated Beverley Hills limply, head full of cheap make-up, poking up from under a sweaty unwashed pink quilt.

Doctor Smeggons hated his job, seeing sick people all day and hearing them moaning back at him with every imaginary ailment they had discovered from his counterpart Dr Google.

Hypochondriacs were the bane of a locum doctor‟s life.

“So, tell me again what exactly is wrong with you this time?” said the Doctor shaking the thermometer in doing sending the remaining silver liquid over the filthy bedspread.
Merthyr Tydfil high up in the South Wales Valleys, had more than it‟s fair share of colds, flu‟s and agues and hypochondriacs too.

In his eighteen months working in Wales, he had witnessed every kind of influenza strain known to man.

Spanish Flu, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, even Sheep Flu with the cluster of reports centred around Ti‟r Shag Farm Trelewis.

I suppose he should have anticipated it in an upland area nearly 1000 feet above sea-level with no remaining heavy industry and few job prospects either.

But it still amazed him that some people didn‟t want to be given a clean bill of health – they wanted him to find something wrong with them, presumably in order to pass to the Government appointed Department for Works & Pension.

Doctor Smeggons didn‟t think for one moment that the “Chad‟ patient in front of him was in that category.

They were definitely ill, the temperature, the sweaty brow and running mascara, the eyes that had rolled in their head so much so that they looked like they were upside-down- it all fitted.

He added to his medical notes with his comedy pen that was in the shape of a cigarette.

It often led to a good deal of merriment- as Dr Smeggons believed in the teachings of American Doctor Patch Adams in that humour was the best form of medicine a medic could prescribe to his patient.

It was also handy for doing his most favourite impression of all.

That of Groucho Marx when he would exclaim to the patient

“ That‟s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!” all the while wagging the fake nicotine tube like it was a cigar from the corner of his mouth whilst rolling his eyes comedically.

It did help the fact that he suffered from Feldman Syndrome which enabled him to move each eyeball independently of the other.

With most people this helped to break the ice but with one Merthyr Vale emphysema suffering miner it literally killed him.

Luckily for Doctor Smeggons, there were no witnesses and he was able to certify the cause of death with no discernible „Marx‟, as being down to pneumoconiosis.

“ So are you a smoker?” asked the Doctor .

“ Yes…came the muffled reply….but I don‟t inhale!” replied the patient inbetween coughs.

“ Just like both President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky too!” said the Doctor writing his notes around the lumps of yellow phlegm that had landed on his ipad.

“ I can‟t believe it‟s not butter!” muttered the Doc.

“ Did you have the flu jab?” he continued.

“ No…!” came the curt reply.

Doctor Smeggons shook his head in disgust.

What was the point of research scientists in laboratories around the World trying to find the cure for the common cold and other viruses if people didn‟t get vaccinated.

Being a man of science and not religion he believed that Nature‟s rule of survival of the fittest should apply and that certain people deserve what they get as they bring it on themselves.

“ So what symptoms have you had?” asked Doctor Jake.

“ A terrible chesty cough, phlegm, fever then the chills, the shits and aches and pains in my liver, kidneys, back and chest!” said Beverley.

“ If I was a horse….they would have put me down by now!” said the suffering patient.

“ Do you want me to call my Wife…..she‟s a vet?” joked Smeggons.

“ My chills are multiplying and I‟m losing control!” replied Beverley unintentionally quoting from the musical Grease.

“ How long have you had these symptoms?” asked the Doctor.

“ Since I watched that George Michael Documentary on telly!” replied Beverley.

“ I don‟t think you can catch anything off the telly….!”

As he looked at the ingrained colour of the portable bedroom television and filthy screen he began to doubt his own words of wisdom.

“ No….it were on over Christmas!” said Beverley.

“I thought I were over it….but it keeps coming back !”

“ What have you been taking to ease the complaint?” asked the Doctor

“ Only my asthma pump and of course a couple of crafty ciggies!” replied Beverley.

“ As you can see from your notes….the smoking helps break up my chest in the morning!”

As if prompted by this, Dr Smeggons reached into his black leather bag for his stethoscope.

“ Lower the quilt to your waist please!” asked the Doctor.

The sight that met him was two hairy sagging breasts.

If Doctor Smeggons ever had any doubt that mankind was descended from apes- it was dispelled by this examination.

Charles Darwin need look no further.

He had found the missing link.

He also found several half-eaten pizzas, toast crumbs and what he hoped was melted chocolate.
If George Michael had ever visited this bed then this was the careless wispa.

He blew on the top of the metal, in doing so sending lots of toast crumbs into Beverley‟s eyes.
“ I thought you were supposed to make me feel better and not worse!” said the patient.

He placed the stethoscope in amongst the chest hair, which even by Merthyr Women standard was very hirsute.

He listened to the heartbeat.

It was not irregular.

“ Your chest seems to be clearing!” the Doctor remarked cheerfully- in the same manner that a weathergirl pronounces that whilst it is Minus 2 outside in Wales in May but it could be worse in Scandinavia it is Minus 10.

“ Can‟t you give me one of those colourless pills the usual Doctor gives me?” asked Beverley.
“ Where is SHE anyway?” asked the patient.

“ DEAD …..said Doctor Smeggons less cheerfully…..died of the Flu last week!”.

Beverley nearly choked on phlegm.

“Only joking….said the Doctor…..I believe she is on holiday somewhere warm!”

“ What pills are you on about anyway?” he asked looking down at the patient‟s medical notes
.
There is no record of any prescription but there was some trivial detail he had overlooked.

“The ones that sound like that Spanish opera singer!” replied Beverley.

Doctor Smeggons puzzled for a moment and then had his eureka moment as a sulphur fart suddenly rose from beneath the half-folded quilt.

The Doctor had to possess a strong stomach to go through seven years of medical training, having dismembered corpses and given enemas to constipated people over the years but this unexpected whiff had tested his gag reflex.

“ Was it called a PLACEBO?” asked Dr Smeggons.

“That‟s the one!” said Beverley without hesistation.

“ Always makes me feel better that one!”

“ Well Doc…..will I live?” asked Beverley hopefully.

Looking around at the poverty and squalor of the human sty the patient lived in, Dr Smeggons wondered why bother.

“ Sadly…..the answer to that is yes!” replied the Medic.

“ Do you know what it is yet?” asked Beverley.

This comment was the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle for Dr Smeggons.

“ A Flu that keeps coming back like a boomerang!”….said the Medical Man as he whipped back the covers to reveal the fact that Beverley had a dick and a massive pair of bollocks.

“ Aussie MAN Flu!”